Farewell, then, to Ike Kuhns, who died last week at the age of 76. Farewell to a treasured journalistic colleague who had been covering American soccer for some four decades.

The newly energized MLS Disciplinary Committee has been working overtime lately, picking up the scraps and remnants from already-played games, and handing out post facto punishments in cases where it believes the culprit (meaning a player, or maybe a coach) deserves some extra chastisement for his offense.

A couple of deja vu scenes present themselves. It's 1954 in Berne, and West Germany has just won the World Cup by beating the invincible Hungarians (well, they hadn't lost a game in four years). How could that happen? Or it's 1982 in Barcelona and Brazil, playing really beautiful soccer, has just managed to get knocked out of the World Cup by a rather pedestrian Italian team. Unthinkable. But real.

... soccer scores always meant what they say. Far too frequently they don't. Which is the fault of the current game, so structured as to allow virtually farcical results.

Alex Ferguson will not win any prizes for his dress sense. Or for speaking easily understood English. So what. All the 70-year-old Scot does is to win trophies. Though this season he can only win one. ManU's chances of doing well in either of the English cup competitions, or of winning either of the European prizes disappeared quite early in the season.

Exactly what it is about the Red Bulls -- to say nothing of their virtually forgotten ancestors the MetroStars -- that enables them to look one day like a promising, if not formidable team, and then turn, almost overnight, into a pathetic scrambling muddle, I can't even begin to work out.

Please sit down. I'm about to announce the most staggering, amazing, incredible, never-before, once-in-a-lifetime, you-won't believe this, what-will-they-think-of next? moment in the 150-year history of soccer.

By now, we all know that the British soccer guys -- coaches, players, referees, journalists -- have immense problems with the offside rule.

Which Giorgio? The Giorgio I enjoyed being with, the easy-going one with the boyish smile and the sense of humor? Or the Giorgio I admired, the goal-scorer, the player who could always be relied upon to liven up any game because, with him on the field, the thought of a dour defensive struggle seemed impossible? Or the darker Giorgio, still the smiling schoolboy, but one who carried the lurking menace of the schoolyard bully?